As many in our office at Monterey Language Services—including our director—are alumni of the Middlebury Institute, we join the career fair every year to speak to promising students and other alumni who attend the event. Those involved ranged from conference interpreters to patent translators or localization project managers, and each one spoke with lots of enthusiasm and eagerness about their experiences and hopes for the future.

The career fair takes months of planning to invite and coordinate the attending companies. When the doors initially opened at 8:00AM for preparation, we were there to set up. As in years past when the event was live, we prioritized mobility with our booth—with our information placed on the table, we were free to walk around the booth and meet attendees at eye-level. One attendee mentioned that it made them feel much more at ease to speak with company employees while we were all standing, rather than speaking with company employees who were sitting.

Our booth was a roaring success. Between the official hours of the fair, 9:00AM-12:00PM, a never-ending multitude of people came to inquire about our positions. It was a treat to meet such friendly faces and discover talent from across the globe. We hope and know that regardless of the positions these students and alumni earn, they will achieve great careers.

We would like to thank not only the attendees, but also the staff at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies for making this event such a success. We know that many, including ourselves, were eager to come to the career fair in-person after such a long time away, and we think that it could not have been better. Thank you.

As an IEP interpretation provider, we often think about what we can do or what information we can put out to improve the lives of the people we serve. In today’s blog, we will be going over techniques to create a growth mindset in your child, rather than a fixed one.

Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset

Stanford University professor of psychology, Carol Dweck, has written extensively about mindsets and their effect on learning. Carol’s research is often based on the difference between a “fixed” mindset and a “growth” mindset, with “fixed” meaning that the person thinks that their abilities are static and can’t be changed, and “growth” meaning that the person sees setbacks as a chance to learn and improve from their mistakes.

As an example, consider a person who wants to become an artist. She may draw a picture and see only her flaws in it; and any constructive criticism from others makes her think, “I will never be able to get better, unlike the people who have natural talent.” This person would have a “fixed” mindset.

On the other hand, a person with a “growth” mindset would see the flaws and constructive criticism and think, “There is plenty of room for improvement. It might be difficult, but with enough practice and learning, I can become better.” While she might not become the next Michelangelo, this person might find joy in the challenge of improving herself and become a great artist in her own right.

How to Promote a Growth Mindset

1. Praise Effort and Perseverance

Even if your child doesn’t achieve “success” in project or endeavor, it’s still important to praise their attempts at success. For example, say your child wants to read a book aloud, but they read slowly or mispronounce words. It’s the act of doing something, often repeatedly, that allows many of us to improve and hone our skills. Encouraging your child for their effort and perseverance even through failure is vital.

You might do this by giving their efforts genuine interest—such as listening to their reading aloud, or watching them as they paint or color—and saying things like “I’m proud that you don’t give up,” “You’ve improved a lot,” or pointing out specific successes, even minor, like, “Good job on remembering how to read that word!”

2. Teach Leadership and Cooperation

It’s important to remember that, with humans being social creatures, we often have successes, growth, or otherwise positive impacts on ourselves and others through working as a team. While everyone has a different level of comfort with teamwork, teamwork is often a necessary skill in life. Talk with your child about what it took to work in a group, and what they may have done to help take responsibility for their team.

When encouraging leadership, remember that leadership does not correlate 1:1 with authority or a position of power. Rather than praising your child for giving terse, blunt commands, you should praise kindness, calm explanations, or presenting ideas.

3. Encourage Organization and Thoughtfulness

Organization is key in helping your child maintain good habits and mindsets. When a child has good organizational skills, they can keep better track of homework, chores, and the like, which gives them more room to grow. Thoughtfulness and intention are key to starting and keeping good organizational habits. Encourage your child to keep homework in special folders, put clothes away in the correct drawers, or to practice an instrument or sport at routine times, and praise them when they do.

Remember that each child is different. What works for your oldest child might not work for your youngest child, and some might need special assistance if they have a disability. Regardless, remember that your child is growing and learning every day, and that includes making mistakes or not knowing how to do things. Children need not only encouragement, but models to follow. If you’re not particularly good at organization, perhaps your partner or friend is. There’s no harm in asking for help.

First, how does one become a project manager? There is no specific major or degree that clearly would put you on a path to become a project manager. What is necessary is mostly experience. But what kind of experience, you might ask. Project managers come from a variety of different backgrounds, but the majority of them have some kind of management experience or knowledge of the different moving parts in the translation process. To become a skilled project manager however, takes plenty of time and honing of skills such as attention to detail, organization, great communication, and assertiveness (willingness to take control of situations).

To become a good project manager, it is important to have many different kinds of skills, but one of the most important ones are communication and a passion for the job. With good communication, it will be easier to effectively coordinate with your team so that there are no misunderstandings during work. In addition, with good communication, you are able to effectively converse with the client so that they feel valued and heard. Then, with a passion for the project manager job, it will be much easier to be careful with details, organized, and move things forward. If the project manager is passionate about their job, they will no doubt treat it with a good amount of care and effort.

So what does a project manager do specifically? Project managers are a jack-of-all-trades and help to manage projects from start to end with highest quality and as little issue as possible. Project managers work with clients to clarify project scope and details, so there would be no surprise to any part of the project as it is progressing. By doing this, the project manager promotes transparency and a level of trust that could not be gained without them. The project manager also helps create a single talking point for the client so that communication is simplified.

Project managers also help to oversee all moving parts in projects and make sure that they are operating with the best team within the allotted budget while staying on schedule. This means that the project manager has to have a clear picture of what is happening with each part of the team as well as their capabilities. Without a clear picture of the entire project, it is not realistic to expect that the project will be handled well. To have a quality plan is a key to project success.

Being a project manager can be a very busy and demanding job, but it is rewarding in the sense that you get to work with every part of the process and have control of the final product. With successful planning, the potential downside to a project can usually be avoided. But even if issues or problems did happen, an experienced project manager knows how to solve problems and makes everyone happy or understand. Being a project manager is an exciting experience that is rife with new challenges and people. If you stick to this career path, you will become confident with yourself, your work, and life ahead of you.

When working on a large project, we have to be organized in our thoughts, in our workflow, and in both our physical and digital space. Every step or the must be clear-cut, and everything must be organized logically and efficiently. This includes labeling all of our files and folders clearly and consistently. When we organize our project documentation, the question we ask ourselves is, “Would the next person working on this project be able to jump in and find everything without any trouble?” This helps us make sure that everything is crystal clear to all of the team members involved, which in turn means that everyone will be able to work effectively. We also create spreadsheets with relevant and up-to-date project information, we keep our files organized in a location we can all access, and we make sure to update each other regularly on what we’ve done and what remains. Ultimately, having clear and understandable organization is the foundation of our work.

We organize the different phases of the project in a way that will help us meet the deadline. In addition to the actual translation, which can take a week or more, there needs to be editing and review, quality assurance, etc. We need to make sure that there is enough time for all of these phases, which are all necessary steps in producing an accurate, high quality translation. For example, in the Japanese-English medical records translation, we received work back from the translators several days before the official due date. We were then able to review the translations and communicate with the translators to settle any possible mistakes or issues. One way we approach this, for example, is to make comments in the delivered file regarding even the tiniest potential inconsistency, and send it back to the translator for clarification.

Another strategy we used, in addition to recruiting multiple translators who had demonstrated experience working in the medical field, was to also include an expert to help us identify less legible doctor’s notes. Part of the source files were handwritten doctor’s notes (which are notoriously difficult to read) so we made sure to find a professional who could help decipher these notes.

Finally, as with any project, there can be unexpected setbacks. We have to be prepared for anything and ready to do what it takes to get the job done, no matter what happens. For example, when one of our team members had an unexpected emergency and couldn’t complete certain parts of the review process that he was going to do, our other team members coordinated to make sure that it would get done.

While these challenges of large projects can take a lot of energy and time, it helps us to remember our end goal: delivering a great translation, and ultimately helping our client. These challenges are much easier to manage when we think about our clients and how they are depending on us to do our best. Our passion for helping people gives us the energy and drive we need to do our best and ensure that we deliver high quality translations!